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A mere 200 yards from shore, surfer Nancy is attacked by a great white shark, with her short journey to safety becoming the ultimate contest of wills.

Why did I want to see it?

I thought the trailer look fun. I have a soft spot for Blake Lively. Shark.

What did I think of it?

I thought this was really well done, tightly directed and not expanded beyond the time needed to tell the story (under 90 minutes) which is refreshing in this day and age when everything seems to be over 150 minutes. Blake Lively is a very personable leading character and I liked the fact that she didn’t panic and wasn’t relying on a man to come and save her, using her intelligence and skill to deal with a horrible situation.

Of course a lot of it is nonsense. Would a shark really want to go to the bother of hunting and eating people when there is a huge dead whale just sitting there waiting to be devoured? And although I enjoy animal revenge movies, would one of the most efficient hunters in the sea really take stuff sufficiently personally to launch multiple attacks on a person because it’s bit miffed? But if you can swallow all of that then this is a nice little thriller. The shark is very well done. I don’t want to give anything away but there is a point where Nancy (Blake Lively’s character) is defending herself in a particular way I wanted to yell a warning about what had happened to Robert Shaw.

It’s not Jaws, but then we already have Jaws so who needs another one, but it is a good addition to this genre of movie. Worth some of your time.